Anarchy in the U.K

(or: Class Wars cont.)

I'm not a partcularly political person. I try to be informed, I take a certain pride in being on top of current events, and I know my rights. It doesn't take a leftist radical to recognize the crash-and-burn conditions our government is wading through. At least it shouldn't.

The U.S is in the midst of one the largest economic collapses in history. Our current war(s) in the Middle East are costing us upwards of $800 million dollars a day ($720 million/day in Iraq alone in 2007. 1). An act that went into effect in July '10 gave an additional $1.12 trillion for military operations (2). Education costs keep rising. The citizen's main military focus is 'Don't ask Don't tell' and whether our gays can openly serve in a war with plummeting approval rates.

No one is doing anything.

No one seems to care.

No one seems to notice.

This week in London, multiple student protests turned to violent rioting. The protests, meant to showcase disapproval of Parliment passing a tuition hike (the bill gives universities the option to triple current prices while removing the National allowance for underprivaledged students). (3).

Students gathered for peaceful marches and were met by riot police wielding batons and shields. Eventually, as groups were pushed into smaller quarters (a military manuver called 'kettling'), demonstraters fought back, rushing the line, tossing sticks, bottles, paintballs, and pieces of concrete.

Mounted police in full riot gear charged thier horses into the crowds, driving students back, crushing and trampling others. A student journalist was thrown from his wheelchair by officers and dragged across the streets (4).

In some cases the violence was more than likely provoked by student instigators. In other reports, the officers threw the first stone, as it were.




Where's this blow meant to land?



Oh, right:


(50,000 marchers in Westminster, reported 32 arrests, 17 injuries including 4 officers, one student was admitted to the hospital with brain damage after being "struck repeatedly with a police truncheon" 5).

My point being,
there was this much outrage, display, and passion about a proposed hike in the cost of learning, and yet our country, our youth, do nothing about any of the controversy in the U.S.

I'm embarrassed for and by my generation.

I'm not suggesting we storm the White House or light the Rockefeller tree on fire, but we've got to do something. We have no passion, and we have plenty to be angry about. So why don't we take action? Why don't we do anything? Are we really that busy? Or do you just have that much faith in our government? I hope not.

http://www.moveon.org/

1)Washington Post
2)Congressional Research Service (www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/rl33110.pdf)
3) New York Times
4)Life on Wheels
5) BBC news

photos: boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/london_tuition_fee_protest.html

*BBBRRRRROMM*

There is a picture of me with a cake in this picture of me with a cake AND I'm eating cake right now. I'm on the snow level!

I have got to get out of here, get going, get moving, do something. Restlessness is setting in again (posing as fatigue). I want to be around people again. People my age, people I like. I need to get my hands dirty (figuratively). The theory of learning by solitude is great. However, its practice is trying.

What begins as a simple itch, a longing
soon turns to me and offers
another
drink. Which, with shaking hand,
I accept.
There is only one way to delay
this disease but I can't swallow anymore
of the lies I'm telling
or the pills I'm taking.

They begin to stick in my throat
and bleed through my skin.
My unherded thoughts rip
through the pores of my scalp
itching like lice.

The panic rises and readys to take the controls.
Hands flutter and smooth poison skin.
These clothes are too heavy
it's too hot
skin flares and burns and cannot be soothed.
My hands fly across my body
trying to keep everything inside
where it belongs.

My hair is falling out.
My nails are rotting in their beds.
Gums race back from teeth
making a mouth like slack-jawed roadkill.

If you could see this feeling;
dark ink suspended in the air around me,
like blood dropped in water;
a smokers haze,
a cancer patients death smell.

I can't hold my breath long enough
to dive under
and so my mind sets off alarms,
the traps I set for myself
-spring-
one by one and all at once

and I've forgotten the safety net.

Don't be afraid,
she whispers perfectly into my ear.
Her tear-sticky cheek is pressed to mine and
I can feel her lips painting their color
onto my overstretched lobes.

I wish I could say I don't know what she's talking about. "This girl is clearly insane." I'll later say to my companions, a half raised glass masking my words. That, like much of what I say, will be a lie. I try to think back to when I first encountered the crazy-not-crazy girl, and find that I cannot. It seems she's always been there, hovering on the borderland of my memories.

Fuck It

I'm not throwing in the towel, I'm using it to wipe the sweat from my face as I face down reality, uncertainty, lonliness and desperation. There ain't no point in turnin' round now. It is what it is and it's always gonna be that way.
so
keep on pacin'. One more step 'cause even with 3 back for 1 forward, a little progress is made.
Heel/toe
Heal/tow
Heel/toe

Starving Artist

I don't think I've ever been as poor as I am right now.
I've got student loans rolling in (anyone know how to delay those?)
I can't drive.
Pubic transit doesn't run reliably enough to get me to a different set every day.
If every mile I walked today was worth one hundred dollars, I out-paced my bank account.
A collection of people owe me more than double the contents of said account. (Shows me how trusting to be. What a pricey lesson).
I don't know how I'm gonna make it through the new year.
I don't know if I'm gonna make it here.

Lucky enough

There is strength in knowing who you are, even if it isn't who you planned on becoming.

We are lucky enough to know
not who we need to be,
but what we really are.

Monsters.